Try breaks with them both.... I've scmucked my toesies but good in the learning phase of roundhouse. Shin is much easier to do and learn, not near the learning curve. Not to say you can't condition it- just a lot more risks and owwies. I still do both. If you want gross motor function, a tool you can use when you are so tired you can't think- the shin is your man. For purdy- ball of the foot. But it is good to be good at both- there was a good point about hitting someone escaping. Knocked someone silly with a roundhouse to the mastoid with the ball a while back. If you can pick a target when their hands are down, why not?

Here's some my primitive man physics: I have this hammer (me like dis, better than rock, uhh, uhh ,uhh). All steel with a sharp shaft and nice and long. Looks just like a leg in roundhouse position. When I want to demolish something, I blast it with that shaft and would cuts and splinters. It in fact looks like a tibial crest (shin bone). It is wayy easier to smash stuff than with the head of that tool. (Now of course if I want to tap something in- you use the head, because the shaft will bust it).

Yeah, dude, you're full of ****. Juts out like the head of a hammer? What the **** are you talking about? It should theoretically have more power since the force is spread out over a small surface? Under which fucking theory? The tip of your index finger is a smaller surface than your fist, but that doesn't make striking with the tip of your index finger a good fucking idea.

Might I ask what the **** you train in?

Might I ask if you ate a lot of paint chips as a child? Or did I not interject the word '****' enough into my post to make it understandable to you, you teeny bopper e-gangster poser?

Firstly: do you know what the word theoretically means you fucking nitwit? Apparently you (and a couple of other people) don't, because you went through great lengths to provide an example that agrees exactly with what I was saying.

Theoretically means something that's true on paper, but doesn't necessarily work out that way in practice.

What I said (I'll try to use all monosyllabic words this time): the same force on a smaller area = more hurt, both for what you hit and what you hit with. (In case it shows up on your GED test, this is Newton's Law regarding equal and opposite reactions.)

So for max damage (in actual practice, not theory) you'd like to find a happy medium between a smaller striking surface and how much punishment that surface can actually take. Your mileage will vary depending on what specific target you're hitting (finger strikes are great if you're hitting soft targets) and your own conditioning of the striking surface.

Secondly, I'm not sure what's so hard to understand about the idea of the foot jutting out. What's easier to sneak through someone's guard: your fist at the end of a precise hook punch or your whole arm swung like a clothesline? Seriously, I can't believe I have to explain this in such detail to anyone over the age of 10.

98% of the time I use shin/instep to kick. That doesn't mean I don't understand (and haven't experienced) the advantages of the other method.

Regarding my karate, it was Shotokan actually, though it's Kenkojuku version, not the JKA type. You can't even understand what 'theoretically' means, so don't bother trying to wrap your mind around that and just go "lol Shotokan".

If you are a newb to fighting and or not interested in techniques that require longer term practice/conditioning stick with the shin. If you are willing to do the work and understand the technique use either one where appropriate.